Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): end of survey report and data release 2

TL;DR

The GAMA survey provides extensive spectroscopic and photometric data for low-redshift galaxies, with a comprehensive data release including spectra, redshifts, photometry, and galaxy properties for over 70,000 objects.

Contribution

This paper reports the completion of the GAMA spectroscopic survey and the second public data release, offering a large, high-quality dataset for galaxy studies.

Findings

Spectroscopic data for 238,000 objects collected

Public release includes spectra, redshifts, and multi-wavelength photometry

Data covers over 70,000 galaxies with detailed properties

Abstract

The Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey is one of the largest contemporary spectroscopic surveys of low-redshift galaxies. Covering an area of ~286 deg^2 (split among five survey regions) down to a limiting magnitude of r < 19.8 mag, we have collected spectra and reliable redshifts for 238,000 objects using the AAOmega spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. In addition, we have assembled imaging data from a number of independent surveys in order to generate photometry spanning the wavelength range 1 nm - 1 m. Here we report on the recently completed spectroscopic survey and present a series of diagnostics to assess its final state and the quality of the redshift data. We also describe a number of survey aspects and procedures, or updates thereof, including changes to the input catalogue, redshifting and re-redshifting, and the derivation of ultraviolet, optical and near-infrared photometry. Finally, we present the second public release of GAMA data. In this release we provide input catalogue and targeting information, spectra, redshifts, ultraviolet, optical and near-infrared photometry, single-component S\'ersic fits, stellar masses, H$\alpha$-derived star formation rates, environment information, and group properties for all galaxies with r < 19.0 mag in two of our survey regions, and for all galaxies with r < 19.4 mag in a third region (72,225 objects in total). The database serving these data is available at http://www.gama-survey.org/.